


(all I wanna do is) run

by subwaywalls



Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Minecraft-Typical Violence, Temporary Character Death, basically minecraft manhunt with extra steps, more characters tba as they appear
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:35:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27385057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/subwaywalls/pseuds/subwaywalls
Summary: The dragon is dying, taking the magic of the world with it. Dream has a solution—but they won't let him see it through.Dream lands on top of him, weight forcing the blade in all the deeper, and leans in as Sapnap struggles to breathe. “Maybe bring a shield next time,” he murmurs into his ear. “Or a squadron. Or an army. Or literally any backup at all.”Sapnap shudders in what might be a death throe or an attempt at an exasperated laugh. “Shut up,” he forces out in a rasp, and then—collapses, his form evaporating into red light and grey dust.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound & Darryl Noveschosch & Sapnap
Comments: 32
Kudos: 161





	1. the first hunt

**Author's Note:**

> nanowrimo take it easy on me _please_

Dream left on a day full of thunder and rain. 

The downpour drenched his clothes, rainwater running down his axe and shield, but he’d held his chin high amidst the shouts reaching out for him.

They said, if you go, don’t come back—and he’d turned on them with tension in every limb, posture held like a snake about to spring or a lion about to leap, and he’d spat, _fine!_ His mask did nothing to hide his anger when his body made it so clear, so vivid, fury in every line of his silhouette.

Lightning split the sky as he walked away. By the time its ensuing thunder rolled in, shaking every tree from its highest leaves to its deepest roots, the gate was already locked behind him, and he was already gone.

Ahead, the lonely path stretched on. 

* * *

But that was over a week ago. It’s a clear sky this evening, faintly humid but otherwise pleasant. Dream takes a pit stop at a small village, browsing a selection of the harvested crops for something to add to his rations.

Curiously, beetroot, carrots, and potatoes are all on display, but the most common crop to farm is nowhere to be seen. “No wheat?” he asks the farmer.

“I can get you some if you’d like,” the farmer says, and shakes his head with a downtrodden sigh. “We have to make everything the old-fashioned way here—crafting tables ‘n such stopped working a ways back—so we only grow ‘em for livestock these days, and we store it in the back.”

Dream pauses. If the crafting table doesn’t work, then… “There’s no magic here?”

“Not a drop, since a month or two ago.”

But the stronghold is only a few hundred chunks away. An impressive trek for someone on foot, yes, but for the immaterial nature of magic, this distance should’ve been covered with ease. The fact that it doesn’t reach this far means the dragon’s in far worse shape than Dream thought.

He needs to work faster.

“I’ll take however much wheat you have to spare,” he tells the farmer. Considering the assumed length of his journey, he’s sure to pass over ley lines and other pockets of magic on the way. Bread is worth the wait. “A stack of carrots, too. How much would that be?”

The farmer hums, tapping the edge of the composter. “The carrots would be eight for the whole stack, and we could probably part with a few of hay bales… It’d be one each for those. How does three bales and a carrot stack for eleven sound?”

“I’ll take it,” Dream says, handing over the emeralds. Without the wardens’ coffers, his funds are limited, but he doesn’t want to switch to offering services as a trained fighter instead just yet. That would take longer to fulfill, and for now he has to prioritize getting away.

He doesn’t know when the wardens will send someone after him, but he does know that with all the resources at the their disposal, including the possibility of compasses literally keyed to his blood, it won’t take long for them to catch up. Better to expand the distance a bit more before he slows down for sustainability’s sake.

Sticking a carrot in his mouth, Dream bids the farmer farewell and starts scouting for a place to set up camp for the night. He’s reluctant to impose upon the villagers directly but figures it wouldn’t hurt to stay in the area. Their well-lit paths and sturdy iron golem make for a safer nighttime experience than he’d find anywhere else, so why not?

Dream ends up taking up residence in one of the trees growing along the outskirts of the village. He goes up as high as he dares, making sure that the wood is solid enough to hold his weight, and builds himself a bit of a nest at the point where a thick branch joins the main trunk. He has plenty of planks to make sure he doesn’t accidentally slide off the branch in his sleep, and a tarp overhead keeps out the worst of the elements.

It’s pretty secure for a makeshift shelter. The leaves below him will stop monstrous spiders from climbing up, and as long as he’s quiet, none of the other mobs will have reason to look up. Most of them will avoid the village’s light and protector, unless they think they’ve spotted an unlucky morsel of prey out at night.

Nobody unarmed villager is dumb enough to willingly leave their houses while the moon is still up, though.

The same, apparently, does not go for whatever idiot is galloping into the village on horseback.

Dream peeks out of his little nest at the sound of rapid hoofbeats. He hears them before he sees them, and no doubt the monsters do too, but it’s probably just a messenger. They know how to keep themselves safe while speeding across the land.

He’s about to duck back under the tarp and get some shut-eye when the figure on horseback suddenly bursts into view, much faster than expected. In fact—Dream’s sharp gaze catches sight of tiny specks trailing behind the speeding horse, light blue to the point of being nearly silver—they must’ve been splashed with swiftness.

Whoever sent them must be both urgent and rich in resources. Dream straightens to alertness, eyes narrowed, and watches the rider bring the horse to a rearing, whinnying stop by the village well. He can’t make out the rider’s face, but their pale leather armor is edged in shades of green-blue, a familiar design that echoes that of the end portal.

Wardens don’t have uniforms, but if they did, that would be it.

Slowly, Dream untangles himself from his blanket and shoves it back into his pack. His heart kicks up speed as he takes down the tarp and puts that away, too. Removing the wood he’d set would make noise, and he’s not sure that’s worth it when he’s almost certainly within the warden’s earshot.

Staying here is dangerous now, but he’s not completely screwed over yet. Even if that person asks a villager or two if someone wearing a mask passed through and they say yes, nobody watched Dream scale a tree. He might be lucky enough to go unnoticed as the warden goes on ahead, following a nonexistent trail.

The warden completely demolishes that line of thought by pulling out a compass with the purple glint of enchantment, which, great, fantastic, Dream _definitely_ needs to leave now. 

Except he can’t outrun a swiftness horse, so there’s no getting away. Between that and the compass, all of his fleeing routes has been closed off. If he wants to get this person off his trail, he has to stand his ground.

Dream gets his feet under him, careful not to disturb the tree’s branches too much, and unsheathes his axe. His shield is securely strapped to his offhand arm as always, so even though he doesn’t have any armor at all, he should still be able to best the warden if he gets a surprise jump on them… 

After a few moments, the horse lifts its head from the water, and its rider starts reining it in Dream’s direction. They pick up a little too much speed and blitz right past the tree he’s hiding in, but that warden must be keeping a constant watch on that compass, because they wheel around almost immediately.

Trotting back to the tree, the warden looks at the compass and then around at their surroundings in confusion. They dismount, and just as they crouch to examine the ground for any hint of disturbance, Dream jumps.

His axe cleaves deep into their shoulder, drawing a shout of “Mother _fuck_!” as the horse jumps away, and—he recognizes that voice. He’s close enough to recognize that headband and its two stupid trailing tails, too. 

It’s Sapnap.

A sudden pang of regret shoots through Dream as he yanks his axe free. He forces down the instinctive apology that rises in his throat, refusing to show any hint of hesitation. Any weakness will be used as an excuse to cajole and persuade him into changing his mind, and he really does not want to deal with that. Especially not with his friend on the other side of the argument.

The wardens probably thought he’d go easier on his friend, or at least be more open to compromise. Dream might’ve let up for anything else, but for this particular quest? Absolutely not. They’d twist it against him somehow, and he knows this has to be done right. 

Donning a voice as chipper as can be, Dream chirps, “Hi, Sapnap! Fancy running into you here.”

Sapnap unsheathes and swings his sword in a single fluid motion, and Dream parries it with his shield. “You’re so annoying,” Sapnap tells him, like this is just another sparring session. 

Dream wonders if he’s just imagining the fondness and relief hidden in that tone. “You can’t beat me one on one,” he says confidently, and swings his axe again. This time, it slams into Sapnap’s sword with enough force to bowl him over, aided by the fact that he’s already rendered one of Sapnap’s arms practically useless. “You don’t even have a _shield_ , Sap, what are you doing?”

“We thought you went further!” Sapnap retorts, rolling to his feet shakily. He’s always had an impressive pain tolerance, but there’s no way he’s fighting at full strength anymore. “It’s not our fault you’re so slow.”

“Yeah, definitely my fault, mister _swiftness horseback_. I’ll make sure to move faster than physically possible next time,” Dream says, letting the sarcasm drip through his words. 

Sapnap rolls his eyes and lunges. As expected, his movements are slower with his injuries, giving Dream plenty of time to raise his shield again—only for Sapnap to suddenly put on a burst of speed (right, even if he is injured, he still has swiftness), sidestep him, pivot around, and take a swing at his back.

Thinking fast, Dream steps with the movement, reducing what would have been a serious injury into a mild graze. Turning would just make Sapnap move behind him again, so instead he flips his grip on the axe and stabs backwards. 

It tears through his leather armor like paper, and Sapnap lets out a choked gasp.

“Give up yet?” Dream asks, kicking him back.

Sapnap staggers, grimacing. “No way,” he says. “I’m supposed to make _you_ give up.”

“Oh, because _that’s_ likely.” Dream watches Sapnap grip his sword tighter with a slight frown. Is he going to have to outright kill Sapnap to make him stop? His friend is incredibly tenacious, and respawning would technically take care of having to wait for that shoulder to heal back up—plus avoiding the risk of it healing wrong, since Dream’s certain he hit a vital muscle or bone on the way down. 

Sure enough, Sapnap doesn’t give up. He takes an uncertain step, visibly steadies himself, and—

This time, Dream rushes in first. His axe catches Sapnap’s sword by the guard and twists, forcing him to drop it, and then whips around to add momentum to his next swing, which sinks deep into Sapnap’s chest and knocks him flat. 

Dream lands on top of him, weight forcing the blade in all the deeper, and leans in as Sapnap struggles to breathe. “Maybe bring a shield next time,” he murmurs into his ear. “Or a squadron. Or an army. Or literally any backup at all.”

Sapnap shudders in what might be a death throe or an attempt at an exasperated laugh. “Shut up,” he forces out in a rasp, and then—collapses, his form evaporating into red light and grey dust.

Waving a hand through the fading particles, Dream sighs. All that’s left is the compass, the bloodied, battered set of leather armor, and a couple of splash potions clinking against each other by his feet. He scoops them all up, hesitating only slightly when his fingers touch the damp, cooling spots of blood on the armor.

The idea of putting it on right now makes him feel uneasy. He chalks it up to the fact that he’s only really got one set of good clothes, and he’s reluctant to get blood all over them.

Well, _more_ all over them. He’s already bleeding from that back wound, and the fabric’s starting to stick to the gash. Patching that up will be a literal pain, but he can’t take the time to do that now.

Looking up, Dream makes eye contact with the village golem, which watches him impassively. It lumbers on after a moment, uncaring of quarrels between two random people who aren’t actual residents of its village. It’ll come rushing over if a mob attacks, but that’s not enough security that Dream feels safe just treating himself out in the open. He has plenty of food and enough energy to heal anyway, so it’s not like he’ll bleed out if he puts it off for a while.

He kicks some dirt over the place where Sapnap fell, retrieves his axe, and goes looking for that swiftness potioned horse. With the speed effect, it could’ve sprinted miles away by now—but it’s well-trained and thirsty, so Dream finds hanging out near the village well again. 

“Hey, bud,” he says softly, reaching up to pet the animal’s mane. “Do you remember me? I definitely don’t remember you, we have—there are so many horses in that compound. But I bet you’ve seen me around. Do you recognize me as a warden? Are you gonna let me take you out for an adventure?”

The horse nickers at him, and then gives itself a shake. Its ears perk at the sound of howling in the distance, which means there’s a probably a pack of wolves hunting some skeletons in the area.

Better leave before they accidentally drive some mobs in this direction. “I’m just going to take that as a yes,” he says to the horse, and hops up onto the well’s stone walls. From there, climbing onto the horse’s back is simple enough. He picks up the reins from where Sapnap left them on the saddle horn and gives them an experimental tug.

The horse turns obediently, and he smiles.

“Alright, let’s go. Remind me to thank Sapnap for hand-delivering me a faster mode of transportation,” Dream jokes.

Unless that was Sapnap’s original intent. The thought doesn’t occur to him until after they break the treeline on the other side of the forest and start galloping through the hilly plains, but once it does, Dream feels his resolve soften a little.

If Sapnap really is trying to toe the line between a loyal warden and a good friend, that’s not going to stop Dream from killing him if he doesn’t back down when Dream tells him to, but it does leave a tiny curl of warmth in his chest.

* * *

The good thing about potions is that once they’re brewed, they keep their magic no matter where they’re taken.

Once swiftness fades from the horse, Dream just throws down another to splash them both and send them speeding across the land again. With the wardens’ standard level of quality make, two potions alone are just barely enough to last through the night. 

It’s not like Dream needs more, though. Having a moderately speedy horse is already an invaluable improvement over traveling on foot. 

By the time dawn comes, Dream estimates that they’re several hundred chunks out from the wardens’ compound. Even with swiftness and more horses, it’ll take a bit for the wardens to catch up now. 

“I think we technically passed into Arctic Empire territory a while ago,” Dream informs the horse, who stopped paying him any mind the moment he stopped feeding it appreciation carrots. It’s preoccupied with grazing at the moment, taking a well-deserved rest while Dream pokes at his scabbed-over wound and winces. Can’t do much else for that now, besides keeping himself fed and giving it time to heal. “If we keep going in this direction,” he says idly, “we might wind up in a pretty big city. That would be helpful. I could definitely use an armorsmith, and the one place that would have one with higher grade armor would probably be L’Manburg.”

As the name leaves his mouth, he pauses. The empire and the wardens try to stay out of each other business for the most part, but L’Manburg—the heart of the empire—used to hold the one and only empire-based gathering that drew the wardens’ attention: the annual championships.

Normally, wardens aren’t interested in anything that isn’t directly related to protecting the dragon, but they do like to flex sometimes. More often than not, they’d their best trainee over to compete in the championship. Dream bore that torch a couple times before the empire got too busy waging war to host it anymore. 

Since then, communication between wardens and the empire has deteriorated; they’re so removed from each other that Dream doesn’t even know what the war was _about_. 

He assumes it was an internal conflict, since there hasn’t been any noticeable increase in border skirmishes or anything. All he knows for sure is that it was bloody and messy and left the royal family tearing at the seams, and the championships haven’t been reinstated since.

“Wonder how much has changed,” Dream muses. “Do you think they’ll ever bring that championship back?”

He doesn’t get a response, of course. Somehow, a part of him had been expecting one, but he quashes that little iota of disappointment quickly. There’s nobody with him right now. It’s just him, the horse, and the winding river at their feet. He blames the illogical expectation of companions on the fact that he just pulled an all-nighter and is probably more tired than he realizes.

Dream crouches by the bank and sticks his fingers in the water. When nothing drastically horrible happens, like drowned zombies coming out of every nook and cranny or something, he deems it safe enough to wash his clothes in. He pulls off his hoodie and shirt, wincing as the movement tugs at his still-healing gash, and dips them into the water.

Once he get a reasonable amount of blood off those, he hands them up on a tree branch to dry. Sapnap's armor gets a less gentle treatment, as Dream just dunks it in and scrubs furiously until even the dye starts flaking off, before that gets put up to dry too. 

It takes a significant part of the day before Dream feels like the garments are dry enough to wear. Having fitfully napped most of that time away, he’s somewhat more alert now as he puts them on and mounts the horse again.

He looks at the enchanted compass he took off Sapnap’s drops, its red arm pointing unerringly right at him, and sighs. “I don’t think it’s worth my time trying to do anything weird with my trail, if they’re all just going to use this,” he grumbles, sticking it back into his pockets and nudging the horse into a trot.

All he can do is hope he can reach the SMP before then.


	2. the second hunt

Dream doesn’t actually know why the SMP is called the SMP. 

He assumes it stands for something stupid, like the Strange Mysterious Portal or something, but the wardens never thought it was important enough to discuss and they tended to be against questioning unimportant things. (Probably because they didn’t know either, and they didn’t want to seem like they didn’t know everything.) 

The only reason Dream even knows it exists is because it was named in one of their oldest—and  _ technically _ restricted, though they should’ve made the security better if they actually didn’t want any of that information to get out—books as the most secure way to enter and exit the nether.

In Dream’s opinion, the wardens should be a little more concerned with the most stable entrance to and exit from the only realm with blaze rods, but to be fair, it is both very far and surrounded by empire influence. From what Dream’s heard, namely stories of fiery death, it’s not like blazes just offer up their rods for the taking anyway. 

Sighing, he crosses his arms on the back of his horse’s neck and props his chin up on there. It’s not particularly comfortable, especially since the horse shakes its head in protest and lowers its neck, forcing him to sit straight or risk sliding right off its back.

“You’re very mean,” Dream tells the horse, who flicks an ear back at him and continues trotting its merry way. “Is this because you figured out that I’m not a warden anymore, or because you’re just mean at heart?”

The horse ignores him, because it’s a horse. Dream decides it’s probably just an inherent charm to its personality, because there’s no way the wardens had time to train their steeds to un-recognize Dream. He doubts that’s even possible when he’s not there, anyway.

Their trek continues uninterrupted for several days. Dream takes a moment to disenchant the compass at a local toolsmith’s grindstone, so it actually works and he can more accurately point himself in the direction he wants to go. His would heals up to the point of barely leaving a scar, his horse is going strong, and all seems like smooth sailing.

So the arrow, when it comes, seems to come out of literally nowhere.

Dream startles and his horse flinches away from the blur of movement that shot past their left side, whinnying in alarm. Twisting around in his seat, Dream sees a group of figures in the distance, standing on a hill. He can’t make out exactly how many there are, especially since their silhouettes are blurred by what must be horses behind them, but it’s definitely more than one.

The distance and the horses rule out the chance of this just being a pillager scouting party, unfortunately. This is definitely a team of wardens sent to hunt him down. A full, proper party, not just Sapnap sent on a wild run in hopes of cutting Dream’s rebellion short.

It was bound to happen, honestly, but that doesn’t mean Dream likes it. He taps his heels to his horse’s sides as another rain of arrows start arching through the air towards them, and his steed lurches into a gallop just in time to avoid getting shot.

Depending on how he looks at it, the forest ahead could either be very good or spell out doom. Dream is inclined to believe that it’s the latter; the trees will help block line of sight, sure, but there’s no doubt the wardens will busted out their precious top-tier steeds for the party chasing him. His horse is good and agile, but theirs are likely to better.

There’s only one thing to do, then. Dream kicks his horse faster, urging it to dive right into the thick undergrowth. Immediately, the struggle to move begins; the horse pushes through one bush but has to leap over another and sidestep a third, all while weaving around the tree trunks. 

Dream has to duck to avoid getting his head taken off by a branch, practically flattening himself. Through the sound of thudding hooves and rustling plants, he can hear faint shouts and—the whistle of a loosed arrow, which thunks into a tree just as they speed past it.

Looking back, he can see the wardens gaining. They’re following in his trail of trampled brush, so it’s actually easier for them.

“Sorry, bud,” Dream says, and pulls flint and steel from his pockets. “We had a good run, and I just need you to keep gong and keep them distracted for me, alright?”

The shouts are growing louder. Dream clicks the flint just once, because he doesn’t want to burn the whole place down or hurt the horse’s lungs, but even that one spark swiftly grows into a sizeable flame before it gets trampled out by the wardens rushing after him. 

He hears urgency in their tone now, and grins. They want to stop him before he starts a wildfire, and that alarm means they don’t want to be looking down at their compasses, they want to look at the horse racing away from him.

And that means Dream can give his steed one last pat on the neck, a quiet urge to run and run and keep running, and when they turn around the next tree, breaking sight line for a split second, Dream slides off the saddle.

He hits the ground with enough force to force a gasp out of him and maybe break an arm, but Dream keeps himself down and just rolls a little further out of the way. He holds his breath as the hoofsteps pound away and a whole flurry of new ones approach. 

They come dangerously close, enough that Dream’s tempted to squeeze his eyes shut, but he knows it wouldn’t help. He needs the information, anyway. Who exactly is coming after him?

The answer crashes past without pause, colors flashing across his vision before they’re gone: blue, black, hints of red and white—and Dream wants to laugh, because he isn’t sure what the wardens think they’re going to achieve by setting his best friends on his tail. George and Sapnap and even Bad, who’s technically a different branch altogether… None of them have been able to consistently beat him one-on-one in the past. Their chemistry will makes them more dangerous as a party than most others, but their bond with Dream would—

…  _ Would _ it negate that?

Dream sucks in a very slow breath, his heart slowly coming down from a roaring beat in his ears. The wardens are out of sight. His arm hurts in such a way that he suspects he broke it. He might’ve bruised a rib, too, but that would’ve been much worse without the leather armor.

Still, he’s certain he made the right choice here. He’ll take these few injuries over having to fight three people at once any day, thank you very much. 

He can always heal back. He probably can’t bust out of the wardens’ compound again, not without significant struggle.

Nothing could be done to keep the horse, though. He knows they won’t hurt it, especially not once they discover that he’s tricked them and there’s nobody on its back, but already he misses the speed and companionship the steed provided. 

Ah, well. 

Just a few more days until he reaches L’Manburg, anyway. 

* * *

Seeing as the hunters are very much on his tail, Dream decides he won’t have time to work off the cost of a set of iron armor in L’Manburg. He’s better off caving and smelting his own iron, and then just continuously mining until he hits a ley line or something.

They’re not  _ that _ rare, he’s pretty sure. Dangerous to explore, but not impossible to find.

Most of them are marked out by wooden posts and old railways, built by people of old who either had a feel for the places with the strongest magic or just felt themselves drawn there without warning. Not unlike dungeons, which are smaller, more concentrated pockets. Someone had to have built the cobble surrounding them and stashed the loot that often sits there, but nobody knows what kind of people used  _ monster nests _ to protect their valuables. 

Dream would settle for one of those cobble-walled monster nests, but he much prefers the sprawling expanse of a decorated ley line. They’re just safer, generally speaking. 

Happily, he does manage to dig himself into one.

“Hello?” he calls, just to hear his voice rebound in the emptiness. He hears clicking legs and rattling bones in the distance, but even monsters have trouble picking their way through the area, so he feels pretty safe mining out a little pocket into a wall and setting up a temporary camp.

Most importantly, when he pulls out a crafting table, it hums softly with latent magic.

“There we go,” he breathes in relief, and quickly starts arranging his stash of iron in the shape of armor, one at a time. A chestplate first, then leggings and a helmet and boots—he even has enough for a bucket and another shield, to replace his nearly broken one.

Finally, after crafting a new iron axe, Dream picks his stuff back up and pokes his head back into the main halls of the old mineshaft. A zombie immediately turns its head and shambles toward him, a raspy moan rising from its rotted lungs.

He decapitates it with a swift swing, and keeps moving before its body even disintegrates. Technically, he’s done what he set out to do down here, but it seems like a waste to just leave. The carved walls expose rare ores, and this far down it’ll take a while for the wardens to figure out where he went even if they’re directly on top of him.

Still, Dream is careful to steer clear of the occasional web-thick sections that are the hallmark of a cave spider nest. Those things are nasty, and not something he’s intent on trying to fight on his own. Nothing he can get from them can’t be found on a regular old spider, anyway.

Turning a corner, Dream spots a promising sight: an upturned minecart with a relatively intact chest still strapped into it. He looks around, securing the area around him with a few blocks and torches, before finally pushing the minecart upright with a grunt.

The old wood, protected from the elements by the metal cart and the fact that it’s so deep in the earth, actually sounds pretty solid when Dream knocks his knuckles on it. 

Its mundane latch poses no difficulty against the edge of his axe, though. It snaps the moment he puts pressure on it, the lid swinging open to reveal a pile of loot. Most of it is uninteresting; a few rails, some beetroot seeds, and unused torches.

Dream reaches for those, knowing he could always use more torches, but when his hand moves the wood aside he catches the much more valuable glimmer of something far rarer.

He holds his breath for emeralds—but it’s more blue than green, and he can’t help the grin that widens across his face under his mask at the sight of two untouched diamonds glinting softly in the torchlight.

It’s not enough for an axe, but with the crafting table’s help he can easily turn it into a sword stronger than anything his hunters would be expecting.

Sticking them into his pack, Dream decides he won’t push his luck any further and starts backtracking his way out.

That’s the problem with places like these, though. Finding a way out is always harder than going deeper in, and for an inexperienced miner, the prior could accidentally lead to the latter without them knowing.

Dream knows it’s because the wooden arches and scattered rails have been sitting in this magic-soaked earth for too long. The ley line ends up infusing a bit of something  _ other _ into them, something that makes torches darken and shadows lengthen and turns people and monsters around until they’re all stuck wandering the corridors until they finally run into each other and tear each other apart.

Blood is not an inherently magical thing, but there’s a reason it was suspected to be, for a while; it’s hard to tell whether the tracks have been rusted or just bleed over a bunch, in these places.

He steps carefully. 

There is no one to laugh at his paranoia when he finally returns to the surface, but his newly crafted diamond sword sits cold and blue in his hands. 

* * *

Dream’s luck holds for just long enough that he can see the outermost walls of L’Manburg starting to peek over the horizon.

And then an arrow sprouts at his feet.

He whips, around, raising his shield just in time to deflect George’s second shot, and then Sapnap in iron armor sprints towards him with an axe raised overhead.

Dream has a moment where he wants to tsk at Sapnap, to lecture against broadcasting his attacks and wasting time like that, but then he hears the sound of an ender pearl popping behind him. 

In an instant, he realizes he’s been baited into a pincer. Bad has an enchanted sword swinging downward and Dream doesn’t have the time to use his shield against both at once, so—a shield against Sapnap’s axe, because that thing is  _ destructive, _ but for Bad who takes a tick of damage through the pearl already, Dream retaliates with just his own sword. 

Unenchanted diamond isn’t quite as powerful, but it’s enough to stay Bad for long enough that Dream can kick Sapnap back while he’s busy regaining his balance. His shield arm is almost numb from the weight of the blow, but he ignores it in favor of twisting out of Bad’s melee range.

“Well, you guys have improved a lot, that’s for sure,” says Dream, breathless with how close those weapons had been to splitting him open. Despite the danger, there’s a thrill of joy in his veins, knowing that his friends are well and thriving. “Was that actual killing intent I felt?”

“I dunno,” Sapnap says, his grin a little too sharp to be friendly. “Wanna get a closer look so you can tell for sure?”

Dream laughs, moving carefully away to stop George (approaching now, bow still in hand) from circling around to his back. “I don’t think it’ll matter that much if I do,” he says, teasing. “You all improved, but you haven’t gotten  _ that _ much better. And even if you did, it’s not like that’ll stop me.”

It would slow him down, maybe, having to break through the walls and defenses throughout the compound a second time, but Dream is certain that he knows the layout of that place better than anyone else. Even if they changed it up, there are secret rooms and tunnels everywhere, some of which he’d carved out himself. They would not be able to stop him permanently.

For some reason, this makes the wardens exchange smug looks and wide grins.

“It’s cute that you think you can get off the hook by respawning,” Sapnap says. There’s an odd danger in his voice, an intensity that Dream can’t quite ignore. 

“That’s magic too,” George agrees. “Why should you have that privilege when you’re trying to kill the source of it all?”

Dream exhales an impatient breath. “I’m not trying to kill magic, I—”

“People respawn in the place they have the most attachment to,” Bad reminds, cutting him off. They won’t listen. They  _ never _ listen, not for this. “You haven’t had anywhere near enough time to set up camp somewhere else, especially when you’re on the move. Don’t think we’ve overlooked that little detail, Dream. We know exactly where your spawn point is.”

That soft, quiet joy at seeing his friends again suddenly sours into something cold and sharp and haunting. Dream knows what they’re implying, but it can’t be. They must be something else, they… 

No. No, they wouldn’t. “You’d never,” Dream says, but his resolve falters at the way George’s eyes avert to the side guiltily. “You didn’t.”

“Oh,” says Sapnap, all singsong with violent conviction, “we  _ did _ .”

They’ve trapped his spawn. 

They—no. That’s  _ taboo _ , that’s the worst thing you can possibly inflict on anyone. To take knowledge so intimate as the place where someone is their most vulnerable, and to  _ trap _ it, is the worst evil of them all. Few spawn points even work nowadays, with the dragon’s failing strength, but Dream’s life is rooted in the heart of the wardens’ compound, which will be the last place to lose its magic. If he dies, he is guaranteed to respawn in whatever his friends have laid for him.

He is guaranteed to die, and die, and die, and die, and—

Nobody does that. It’s needlessly cruel to even the worst of people. Nobody would dare.

(Years ago, under a warm and heavy blanket, three children whispered their spawn points to each other. They were convinced that sharing their greatest secret would make their friendship last forever.)

“If you come with us peacefully,” Bad says, kind to the cruellest end, “if you promise to give up this foolish, stupid quest, we can remove it.”

Inhale. Exhale. Dream closes his eyes to his friends and opens them to a set of  _ traitors _ , the keening betrayal in his chest changed into a roaring warsong. “You said not to come back,” he reminds them.

“Dream,” George says, and there’s a tinge of regret in his voice but not enough to indicate that he’ll actually back down. “This is on you, Dream. C’mon.”

“You said not to come back,” Dream repeats. And lowers himself into a ready stance, eyes ablaze, diamond sword gleaming in his hand. “So I won’t. I’m not coming back.”

Sapnap bares his teeth. “Why do you have to be so difficult, Dream,” he snaps, and it’s the first crack in his angry facade that Dream has been able to catch so far. There’s desperation there, a note of pleading just barely hidden under all that spitfire. “Just come with us and we’ll sort this shit out.”

They don’t want to hurt him, Dream thinks. They will, to do what they think is right, but they don’t  _ want _ to. It’s a measly sentiment but it makes his heart clench in his chest, another resurgence of doubt creeping in. Is saving the magic of the world worth the pain of the journey? Is it worth the disdain of his friends?

Is it worth bloodying their hands?

For a moment, he imagines being selfish and caving in. He imagines putting down the old books and new weapons and letting himself back into the fold, watching with impassive eyes as the world begins to crumble, as time drags the dragon’s immortality to the brink of death.

Inevitably, his mind turns to the villages that have lost their magic already, who arrange wheat on the crafting table and weep as it fails to rise into bread, who struggle to carve weapons and tools by hand, who bleed into the gap that magic has left behind.

He’d lived like that, once.

He tightens his grip on his sword. He won’t abandon them. This friends may plead and threaten all they like, but he refuses to let his eyes so much as sting. 

“Leave me alone,” Dream says. His voice remains level. “I said what I said and I meant it.”

And he won’t regret it, either. 

No matter what they do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i realized i had like. almost the whole chapter written out forever ago and just forgot to finish it lmao
> 
> anyway! next time we'll be seeing a new character. and after that we might have an interlude. idk i'm just testing the waters as i go. i have so many fics you guys i STRUGGLE with focus sjhdfgksf
> 
> hope yall enjoyed it though <3 fun things are coming :)


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